As he ceased speaking, Mr. Fabian found the girls were intensely interested in his little lecture, and he smiled as Polly cried: “Oh, tell us some more along that line, please!”
“Well, I wish to impress upon you that in your work you must express the highest ideal or be a failure. Now God, Good, is Mind, and this Mind must be expressed in countless manifestations to be seen by us. Unexpressed it is a non-entity, and does not exist. Art and beauty are forms of ideal manifestation, and this manifestation objectifies itself in divan, lamp, rug or ornament, for you.
“To be a perfect thing, it must have God, or Mind, as its Creator, but this God uses you, His child, as the channel through which He works. If you obey that idealistic desire and work the best you know how, God sends added understanding and assistance to help you perfect the object, thus it becomes good and true. Now evil works, too, but just in the opposite directions; hence, if you give in to greed, avarice, dishonesty, envy, or the multitude of weapons evil always has on hand to tempt you with, you inevitably must produce an inharmonious result, and the repelling effects that go to cause criticism and dissatisfaction with all who thereafter look at the object.
“That is why that roistering armchair displeases a true and idealistic artist. It was not produced by a true and high-minded individual who hoped to bring forth a model of line and color, but who had only in mind, at the time, the production of a stout piece of furniture that would withstand the tests and offer a seat to the drunkards of that time; and would also resist the fierce quarrels and fights so common between gamblers who frequented the taverns of that day.”
“I wish to goodness I knew as much as you do about all these interesting things, Mr. Fabian!” declared Polly, yearningly.
“That is the sweetest praise a man can have, Polly dear; to wish to stand in my shoes in experience,” smiled Mr. Fabian. “But the very desire when truly entertained, will bring about the thing you so earnestly desire. For you know, ‘Desire is prayer.’”
Mrs. Fabian smiling at her husband, now said, “Why not add a benediction to this little sermonette, dear?” Then turning to the girls, she quoted: “‘Give up imperfect models and illusive ideals; and so let us have one God (Good), One Mind, and that one perfect, producing His own models of excellence.’”
That evening, the clerk at the hotel office handed Mr. Fabian a card.
“Why, how strange!” remarked he, glancing again, at the pasteboard in his hand.
“What is it?” asked Nancy, trying to look over his shoulder.